Is this a glitch in The Sims 2?

You can buy a Bowling Alley object that resells for more than you buy it for - letting you continuously buy and resell it for boatloads of cash.

Is this a well known glitch? Or is it just me? Are there any other objects that do this?

Solution 1:

As far as instantly? Not really, but some pieces of art tend to increase in value over time.

Solution 2:

Objects in The Sims 2 are assigned a "depreciation" value. It's been a while since I looked at the internal code of the game; but if I remember correctly:

The "depreciation value" is between -100 and 100. An object with a 100 depreciation value will lose 100% of it's value over the period of one day (within the game). The average depreciation value is about 10%; which is why objects usually lose monetary value over time. (10% per day, compounded)

Some objects have a negative depreciation value. For example; "-25% depreciation" will cause the object to gain 25% in value each day. Most objects with negative values are artwork/sculptures, which seems logical (as these items typically increase in value in real life). In a few instances; such as the bowling alley, they do gain value due to an error in the objects code. At a guess, I would imagine the programmer entered a negative value by accident.